The Circle
by Auua Ytjoml
Summary: When the Red Sea became dry land I wept.


When the golem took her Queezle was shredded, her essence mutilated and ruptured, and then with nothing more than a millionth of teaspoon left, dissipated into the dark cloud surrounding the enchanted humanoid heap of river mud that had consumed her.

But the memories and experiences that had shaped her life lived on in the lives of others.

The saying "No one is truly gone until the memory of them is lost" is just a pretty token meant to prod bereaved humans into feeling less guilty. Normally. In my case it was a truth that continued her life – sort of – and started mine.

I am Ezequel. I am also Queezle. I hold Queezle's memories, I remember her emotions, but it is like watching someone else's life – something any interested spirit in the Other Place could accomplish with ease were they so inclined. We are one there and it's out of the memories of Queezle that I was born. I don't know why I am identified with Queezle. I never met her but at the same time it's like we inhabit the same essence. She is a second voice in my thoughts – someone who is definitely not me barring the times when she is nothing else.

So while I'm not quite Queezle, I'm not just Ezequel either.

If you include my twilight years as Queezle I am over a million years old – give or take a millennia. I've met with a lot of pain, torture, a lot simple inconsiderateness – even a single heartbreak. Queezle was astoundingly lucky with her masters; and amazingly naïve. I'd felt that naivety many times and each time I beat it back with memory after memory of cruel masters, fearful children, and contempt filled humans.

I have no misconceptions. Someday I will fail to be dismissed from a summonings – there won't be any need to dismiss me, I'll be dead. Technically I already have died.

And when Queezle died did anything change? Of course not. The circle of slavery, hatred, power and greed simply started over again. An empire fell in London and rose in Philadelphia. New places, new faces but the same emotions and the same power structure. I suppose that when Ezequel dies it will be the same.

I've watched entire mountain ranges rise from level ground. I've seen gold be created, fashioned, forgotten and eventually worn away. I've seen countless empires rise and collapse.

I've discovered that it's the big things – things that humans are never around long enough to observe – that cause me to blink back an odd itch in the corners of my eyes. Like when a new chain of mountains started pushing its way up through the ancient Appalachian faultline. Or when the Mediterranean shrunk turning into a series of large inland lakes.

When the Red Sea - Ερυθρὰ Θάλασσα - Erythra Thalassa - Al-Bar Al-Amar became dry land, a great valley with only a river and a series of cascading streams to wet its stone, I wept. I wept for lost time and I wept for gained time. So many years and nothing had changed. The Circle remained – an unholy phoenix rising from the ashes of the last empire.

When Queezle first was summoned I thought I loved the night sky. The moon shone like a beacon among a fiery infinity reminiscent of home. But the moon went through it's phases and never changed; only growing more distant with the passing of the ages. And the whirl of stars and rush of night against feathers is thrilling . . . except for the feathers part. Trapped in a physical body the most graceful and swift of wings failed to bring me home to ease the ache forming inside of me.

At length Queezle grew despondent. She stopped looking at the sky that sharpened her homesickness to a piercing keen. Eventually my favorite night became a moonless one – one with heavy cloud cover and no stars. The circle would not, seemingly could not stop and I can not bear a starry night sky.

One of the joyful memories I have – as Ezequel, not Queezle – is dancing. My master ordered me to guard the young woman he wished to take as his bride – however unwilling she might be. We were hid away in an old castle, younger than me by centuries but looking older than the soil at its base. The girl was unusual. She wasn't afraid of me. Rather she asked that I dance for her – anything at all so long as I would enjoy it. As I flitted across the stone floor she sat enraptured by my performance and I too was distracted from my general troubles as a slave in a foreign land. She sang and I danced, using movement and music to forget for the moment that we were both captive.

Once I walked the old haunts; Uruk and Jerusalem, Babylonian and Alexandria. At most there was nothing but desert sand. Gentle hills of golden implacable grains met the gently lapping waves of inexhaustible heat.

I had been ordered to gather information on the Arabia. With no specifics I gathered my thoughts in the desolation of desert sands.

At midnight as a cold moon rose lake marble above sandstone hills, the powers that held me tightened their grip for an instant and then snapped. Exultant I sprang free of my physical prison and leapt into Chaos. Another master gone, another to brief visit home. Brief no matter how long it actually lasted. I wondered how long I would rest before being drawn back.

You are my latest master. You summoned me with the intent of learning from me – an intent few share. But desire for knowledge does not make you a good person. By your own laws slavery was outlawed a millennia ago. Yet the circle of slavery, power, greed, resentment and hatred – duality and eternity – has renewed itself here. My answers come with queries. Idle curiosity, nothing more.

Will your kind ever learn?

Will the Circle be broken?

Do I even need to ask?

Oh and last thing. . . after you release me could you be so kind as to blot my name – both of them – from any book you happen to find it in?


End file.
